One of our family's favorite books was Not Enough Beds for the Babies, written by Mary Ann Hoberman. We found it at a library sale, well-worn from much use and thus being discarded.
It is a lovely collection of poems about three friends, 2 girls and a boy, who pretend together. As children often do, the friends act out the roles of mothers and doctors and grocers. They have their quarrels, but end the day looking forward to playing again tomorrow.
We read it so much that some of our pages are ripped and there is tape along its spine and a blotch of nail polish on the back cover.
I love this book because it intermingles the world of imagination with reality - without it being a problem. Children pretend, but they KNOW they are pretending and can easily hop from one world to another.
1 comment:
This is my favorite childhood book! The poem about wanting more boy dolls because one needs them to be the "Doctors and lawyers and soldiers and sailors" makes it too dated for re-release, but when I got the chance to meet Mary Ann Hoberman at a book signing I begged her to re-work it for modern children. (She was lovely. My recent favorite of hers is The Seven Silly Eaters. If you are not familiar with it, it is a GEM. And here's a bit of trivia: The Hoberman Sphere is the invention of Mary Ann's son, Chuck. Her husband, Norman, is an artist who illustrated a few of her early books. They are a very talented family.
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